Interview With Twilight Actor Jackson Rathbone

We caught up with Jackson Rathbone right before Twilight hit theaters. Here's what he had to say…

TEEN: In the movie they never talk about Jasper's vampire abilities. Why?

Jackson: Well it doesn't really come out too much in the book. It's one of those things were it's understood but in the third book it really comes out like the back story and everything. I think one of the things we didn't want to get too much into was focusing on all the other vampires. We wanted really to establish this relationship and how she (Bella) gets sucked into the world of the Cullen family and once she's in the world that's when things kind of start coming out.

One of the things about Jasper is he doesn't use the ability all the time. It's something that he's very strict about using because it's like an invasion of privacy to make someone feel something, to manipulate emotions.

TEEN: Did you enjoy your fight sequence?

Jackson: Oh, I loved it! It kind of has that male side of me that's kind of like, yes, finally go crazy, because Jasper is very reserved, one of the late comers who's come into this vegetarian vampire lifestyle. Whenever we would sit around the lunch table while we were filming, us Cullen kids would kind of joke around about how we can take everybody out in the cafeteria in about 15 minutes.

TEEN: Did you enjoy physically changing your appearance to play Jasper?

Jackson: I really enjoyed it. I was always a character actor when I was in theatre. I kind of find that it helps the audience, especially with Jasper. I mean I'm not actually blonde so I had to bleach my hair blonde. I'm fairly pale. I'm more of an indoor sports kind of guy you. I'm a musician so I spent most of my time awake at night and in the recording studio tucked away from the sun.

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But I really do love to change appearances for a lot of the characters I play.

TEEN: What's up next for you? You seem to keep really busy!

Jackson: Well I've got some stuff that I am really not supposed to talk about, I'm not allowed to say. I will say that our band (100 Monkeys) will be focusing a lot more in terms of getting out our actual written album out there. We have an album we're in the middle of mixing and mastering right now which is a complete jam session album of all improvised music, including improvised lyrics, so everything in the song is one take, one track, you don't get a redo. It's kind of like the way Jack White produced Loretta Lynn for her album. We kind of took that idea and ran with it. We're mixing that album and hopefully will start playing out a lot more.

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